Not so Wonderland
by Gaara'slilsis
Summary: What would it be like, if years after Alice left, Wonderland was not so wonderful anymore. It's twisted and mutated. Who has caused such a big change? "Chess? Do YOU know who?" Rated M for safety!
1. Chapter 1

A white rabit in a vest ran through the forrest in his daily routine of being late for a very important date. If he had bothered to look up, he might have noticed something horribly out of the norm for ANY creature of wonderland. It was the cheschire cat, yet not. His mischeivious grin was gone, his fur had lost it's luster and had faded to a dingy grey-brown. His teeth had yellowed, his body had thinned, you could see just about every bone in his body. Yes. All was not fine in Wonderland. And the cat's new appearance was just the beggining. All of the inhabitants of this land were feeling the change. Tweetle-Dee and his twin brother, Tweetle-Dum, had to be caged just the other day due to.... Er...... well... let's just say that the Mad Hatter is no longer among the living. The Queen of Hearts had changed too... she had turned a sickley pale color and become more unforgiving than ever.

As the cat mused upon all of these things, he heard a small voice. "Hello? Is anyone here?" He smirked and dropped out of the tree landing infront of a girl that appeared to be about fourteen. She had long hair that was loosly braided. A navy blue ribbon in her hair worked as a headband and at the same time, tied the end of her braid as it was wrapped around her head, braided into her hair, and came to an end in a perfect bow at the base of the braid. She wore a blue dress to match the ribbon, forrest green stalkings, and black shoes. As he reached her face, something about the build of it, the spark of curiosity and life in the eyes, and the young girl's smile, sparked recognition in him. Recognition of the last girl to ever wander into wonderland. Alice.

"Hello, little girl. What is your name?" he cooed as he sat on his haunches. A smile spread across the girl's face and she knelt down and started rubbing his head.

"My name is Rosemary, Mr. Cheschire cat, but you can call me Rose! I'm looking for my mother, can you help me find her?" she asked politley. The cat was taken aback. He had not expected her to know who he was, even if her mother was, as he suspected, Alice.

"Yes, I will help you find your mother. And how did you know who i am?" he inquired. Rose's grin grew as she looked at the grey sky.

"My mother, Alice, has told me stories about this place, especially you. I have to say, this isn't what i expected, but, your smile's what gave you away. Anyway. Mom was taken by what, if i remember correctly, are the card guards of the queen of hearts, last night." Rose said nonchalauntly, as if it was an everyday occurence.

"Why are you so calm?" asked the cat.

"Oh. Mom always expected her to come and get her because of a grudge, and recently, she has had the feeling that all is not well in wonderland." She replied. "I guess she was right."

"You both hit the nail on the head." the cat said with a grin as he got up and turned away to lead her to a safer place to talk. He looked back at her over his shoulder and said with a grin, "By the way, feel free to call me Chess."


	2. Chapter 2 DeeDee and TumDum

Rose followed Chess through the woods. An eerie feeling of being watched imposed its self upon her senses. As she looked around at the dead, leafless trees, she noticed that they seemed to be alive, raking their long, spindly fingers across her face, drawing blood. Her heart raced and she sped up, keeping close to the cat in front of her. "Mr. Chess?" she whispered.

"Yes, Rose?" Chess asked without looking back.

"Why do I feel like I'm being watched?" the words seemed to ghost out of her mouth, almost impossible to hear, but Chess' hearing picked it up easily.

With a dry laugh he replied, "That, my dear, is because you ARE in fact, being watched. Well, stalked, is more like it, but you get the gist of it." Rose gasped in surprise.

"We are being stalked?! But, by who? The cards?!" Rose's imagination was working overtime.

"No, child. The cards wouldn't dare come here anymore. Not since-" Chess was cut off mid-sentence as a large, muscled arm burst out of the foliage and grabbed Rose by her braid dragging her off kicking and screaming. Jumping into action, Chess leapt forward and clamped his jaws down on the receding hand. Snarling, biting, scratching, and tearing, he finally managed to get the hand away from her. Tensed and ready to pounce, Chess surprised even himself, as he did something that he had never done before. He hissed. The trees in front of them parted and out came Tweedle-dee and his twin brother, Tweedle-dum. The identical twins had on white shirts with red stripes, denim overalls, and sported a shock of white hair on top of their otherwise bald heads. They were both about eight and a half feet tall, the veins around their eyes bulged out, and their muscles were so massive that there was no doubt that they couldn't touch their heads. Tweedle-dee was holding his arm in pain, large tears racing down his face and lips quivering as his brother fussed over the bleeding appendage.

Rose, feeling sorry for them, tore the skirt of her dress so that it now came to her mid-thigh and approached the twins carefully. "Dee-Dee? Tum-Dum?" she murmured. Upon hearing Alice's nicknames for them, they looked up. And they smiled.

"Licey! (Pronounced Lissee, like the end of Alice's name with a ee sound added on the end.)" They intoned together. Their faces lighting up at the thought of the only person to be able to tell them apart. Rose smiled at them and started to wrap up Dee's arm.

"No, Dee-Dee, Licey is my mom." she explained softly.

"We should get going. We need to reach the cave before nightfall." Chess urged when she had finished wrapping the arm.

"Okay." was Rose's short reply.

After half an hour of walking, the four of them reached the cave and settled in. Turning to Dee and Dum, Rose asked the question on both her and Chess' mind. "Why did you kill the Mad Hatter?" There was a tense silence. After a while, Dee looked at Dum and nodded.

In a sad voice, Dum said the one sentence that started the mystery of a lifetime, "We no do, we framed by Red."


End file.
